Omar Mateen’s Father Makes Claim About Shooting That Many Dispute

Omar Mateen’s father, in an interview with NBC News, said of his son’s actions in the Orlando, Florida, gay nightclub massacre, “This had nothing to do with religion.”

After telling reporters that his son was angered after seeing two men kissing, Seddique Mir Mateen said, “We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock, like the whole country.”

But Seddique Mateen’s explanation and apology have not been well received on social media, with many asserting Omar Mateen’s Muslim faith was the source of his hatred of gays.

Omar Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and the group’s official radio channel described the massacre as a “raid on a Crusader gathering” carried out by “one of the Caliphate’s soldiers in America.”

Meanwhile, reports indicate the elder Mateen is a controversial individual in his own right.

Jagruk Bharat reported that Seddique Mateen hosted the “Durand Jirga Show” on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which is broadcast out of California. He has also posted dozens of videos to YouTube, sometimes wearing a military uniform. In one video, Seddique Mateen reportedly can be seen praising the Afghan Taliban and denouncing the Afghan government. In another, released just hours before his son killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, he called for the arrest of U.S. backed-Afghan leaders.

CBS News reports that in videos posted to Facebook, none of them in English, Seddique Mateen declares himself the leader of a “transitional revolutionary government” of Afghanistan. “He claims to have his own intelligence agency and close ties to the U.S. Congress — assets he says he will use to subvert Pakistani influence and take control of Afghanistan,” CBS News reports.